Road to Mastery

Road to PSM III — Episode 21

To close this season I’ll share my experience, thoughts, and pointers for those preparing themselves for the PSM III assessment. I hope this series has been of value and would love to know your thoughts. I would kindly ask one small favour in return. As I imagine others on a similar journey will read it, please let me know if I have erred anywhere along the way. I tried to be as factual and correct to the best of my ability, whilst allowing room for adding my perspectives and experiences (and well… the memes). I tried to make it serious, but not boring. If you feel anything can be improved for future readers, please share this feedback so I can revise it.

One of the biggest challenges of PSM III is the ability to put into your own words in very short time a response to very specific both complex and dangerously straightforward scenarios. A PSM III certificate is earned by demonstrating a distinguished level of Scrum mastery.

“Achieving PSM III is the highest demonstration of knowledge any Professional Scrum Master can make.” — Scrum.org.

I started this series stating that

“I call myself a Scrum Master, and PSM III may testify that I hold a distinguished level of Scrum Mastery, but that is not to say I master Scrum!”

and that

“Seasoned Scrum Masters will agree that those who think they mastered it, likely haven’t.”

So I began my road to Scrum mastery after passing the PSM III exam. I ran through the Scrum Guide to try and put into my own words why the guide says what it says. I received a lot of support from Serious Scrum’s writers. I learned plenty along the way. I would recommend anyone to do likewise. Run through the guide and write up your understanding about it, share it with the community to collect feedback, learn, and adapt.

Preparation

Getting yourself prepped and ready means deep-diving into Scrum Developer practices and terminology (such as technical debt), learning Product Owner techniques that benefit maximising value, and understanding how Scrum can be organised at scale (Nexus). You need to at least have passed PSM I and taken PSM II and thus be familiar with their subject area’s (PSM I — PSMII). The summary of those earlier assessments will reveal what subjects you need to get more familiar with. A slight warning though: the recommended reading material listed in the PSM subject areas can be somewhat outdated, so be sure to verify your learnings with the latest edition of the Scrum Guide.

The online 2-hour exam contains only 34 questions, mainly open essay questions. That said, most of the 34 questions are segmented and each requires a solid answer.

It will be hard to answer all those questions in time. I finished the last answer just in time and had no time left to revisit earlier questions. It will be extra hard for those who are not native English. Seriously, you will (most likely) not have time to look anything up. It truly tests your Scrum Master instincts. It will take a day or so before you get the credentials to begin the exam. It will take a week or fortnight before you get your results. It’s nerve-wracking. You know, it might help to be prepared to have to give it two attempts. It’s that hard. I passed it at 89.4%. The passing grade is 85% and to become a PST you will need to pass 95% (for each of the three assessments).

I ran through the Scrum.org forum and took notes from answers given by the Scrum Trainers (PSTs) like Chris Belknap and Ian Mitchell. These really helped. What also helped were practicing answering open-ended questions and sharing these with the community to see what different answers I might get. What could also help is to have another PSM III or PST prepare an open question interview. Be sure to join our Slack community if you haven’t already and ask for help in getting prepared for PSM III!

Check out this article in Scrum.org’s knowledge base: how do I prepare for the PSM III. It contains a good practice question and explains good and bad answers.

Practice Scenarios

So here are some other practice scenarios to help you prepare, mainly involving ScrumButs. Feel free to provide your answer or add more!

1. A Development Team, arguing it is self-organising, indicates it no longer needs the Daily Scrum; they collaborate throughout the day and they feel it has become a needless ritual.
2. The Product Owner asks the Development Team to pick up a very urgent item late in Sprint that was not forecasted, nor is it related to the Sprint Goal. The Development Team believes it can pick this up, as it is close to meeting the Sprint Goal. but this would involve not meeting their process improvement goal agreed upon during the last Sprint Retrospective. The Product Owner argues that, as it’s the highest priority to satisfy the customer, the needs of the customer have a higher priority than the process improvement goal for the team.
3. The CEO announces a ‘company event’. The event is scheduled to take place at the same time the Sprint Retrospective is scheduled. As not to ‘limit the impact of this event on the productivity’, the CEO instructs team to cancel, rather than pre- or postpone the Retrospective. She argues: “They have so many anyways, and this new unique event is also somewhat of an informal gathering”.
4. HR is requesting the Scrum Master to provide input for a performance review from one of the members on the team (because Scrum Master is assumed to be closest to the day-to-day performance of people on the team). — By Marc Bruisten
5. During a Sprint, the Development Team realises an item it selected in the forecast is much more complex than estimated. With approval from the Product Owner the Development Team changes it for an item it thinks it can finish.
6. A Scrum Team implements a process improvement goal that is not in line with organisational policy and standards. They argue they are self-organising and should be able to break with the ‘old ways’ through small controlled experiments.
7. The Product Owner is highly conservative over who gets access to the Product Backlog which is maintained in a personal spreadsheet. He argues that if anyone wants to have access to information about the Product Backlog they can talk to him directly or join in on scheduled Product Backlog refinement sessions.
8. A Development Team discusses that due to the absence of a Development Team member it no longer has all the skills required to deliver a working “Done” increment according to the definitions of “Done”. It wants to adjust the definitions of “Done”.
9. Just prior to the Sprint Review a Development Team member determines some aspects of a process deviate outside acceptable limits, and that the resulting product will be unacceptable.
10. During a Sprint Review, when the Development Team is answering questions about the increment, there is a discussion related to work on a specific Product Backlog Item that is not considered “Done” by some. The Development Team members that worked on the item are in disagreement. Some argue it is “Done”, others argue it is not.
11. The Product Owner doesn’t understand the estimate given by the Development Team regarding a Product Backlog item. The Product Owner is surprised to learn that the item is deemed very complex. The Product Owner refers to an earlier ‘similar’ Product Backlog item, which was not complex at all.
12. Decisions to optimise value and control risk are made based on the perceived state of the artifacts. Which Scrum events improve transparency over the artifacts? explain how.
13. What risk is introduced if not all Development Team members are present for the Daily Scrum?
14. The Product Owner insists on participating in the Daily Scrum so as to keep informed of the status and progress of development.
15. The Product Owner suggests postponing the Sprint Planning as she hasn’t yet been able to process all the feedback from the Sprint Review into the Product Backlog. She argues it makes no sense to plan the Sprint if the Product Backlog isn’t in a transparent state.

You can drop your answers in the comments or discuss these with us in Slack. Edit: Someone also shared these questions and possible answers in the Scrum.org forum.

Check out the ‘are you serious?!’ a Serious Scrum series by Willem-Jan Ageling addressing several defective Scrum scenarios.

Cheat Sheet

Now, a cheat sheet doesn’t do justice to Scrum but it helped me lots.

3 Pillars [empiricism]

Transparency, inspection, adaptation.

5 Values [trust]

Courage, focus, commitment, respect, openness

3 Continuous improvements

The product, the team, and the working environment.

“Scrum Teams deliver products iteratively and incrementally, maximizing opportunities for feedback. Incremental deliveries of “Done” product ensure a potentially useful version of working product is always available.”

3 Roles

• Scrum Master [facilitator, impediment remover] — The Scrum Master’s responsibilities
• Product Owner [value maximiser]
• Development Team

Given their responsibilities take note on the nuances between:

• Ensuring
• Helping
• Facilitating
• Coaching
• Leading

The team model in Scrum is designed to optimise:

• Flexibility
• Creativity
• Productivity.

Scrum Teams are

• Self-organising: how best to accomplish their work, rather than being directed by others outside the team.
• Cross-functional: have all competencies needed to accomplish the work without depending on others not part of the team.

5 characteristics of a Development Team

“Development Teams are structured and empowered by the organization to organize and manage their own work. The resulting synergy optimizes the Development Team’s overall efficiency and effectiveness.” — The Scrum Guide

• Self-organizing
• Cross-functional
• No titles
• No sub-teams
• Collective accountability

Development Team size

• Small enough to remain nimble
• Large enough to complete significant work within a Sprint

Fewer than three members:

• Decreases interaction and results in smaller productivity gains
• Encounter skill constraints during the Sprint
• Unable to deliver a potentially releasable Increment

More than nine members:

• Requires too much coordination.
• Generate too much complexity for an empirical process to be useful.

The Product Owner and Scrum Master roles are not included in this count unless they are also executing the work of the Sprint Backlog.

5 time-boxed Scrum Events

• Sprint — max 1 calendar month.
• Sprint Planning — max 8 hours (usually shorter for shorter Sprints) — The Scrum Team
• Daily Scrum — max 15 minutes — The Development Team
• Sprint Review — max 4 hours (usually shorter for shorter Sprints) — The Scrum Team and Stakeholders (invited by the Product Owner)
• Sprint Retrospective — max 3 hours (usually shorter for shorter Sprints) — The Scrum Team

3 Artifacts

• Product Backlog
• Sprint Backlog
• Product Increment

What else:

• The Sprint Length
• Sprint Goal
• Sprint Cancellation
• Process improvement goal
• Forecast
• Definitions of “Done”
• Value, complexity and estimation
• Product Backlog refinement

During the Sprint:

• No changes are made that would endanger the Sprint Goal;
• Quality goals do not decrease; and,
• Scope may be clarified and re-negotiated between the Product Owner and Development Team as more is learned.

Understanding nuances:

• Transparency, openness, visibility, accessibility.
• Apply ‘cross-functional’ opposed to ‘multi-disciplinary’.
• Apply ‘self-organisation’ opposed to ‘self-management’.

Study tip: Highlight must / may / could in the Scrum Guide.

Closing argument

Despite my early (but natural) frustrations to understanding Scrum, the only section in the Scrum Guide I have come to loathe is that it says Scrum is simple to understand but difficult to master. It is my experience that Scrum, as lightweight as it is, is actually hard to truly understand, and in practice it is seemingly impossible to master. The more we learn, the more we discover there is to learn. That’s the fun part. The truth is, I had no idea what I was in for going down PSM wonderland.

In any case, Scrum will only work, and will only provide you with its benefits if it is taken seriously, to begin with. That may start with you. PSM III is in any case a true demonstration you have. You understand what it means to be a servant leader and that you embrace empiricism.

Understand that PSM III is not just validation or an achievement, its assessment is an exercise; a learning opportunity. Know that the best way to demonstrate your distinguished level of Scrum mastery is through humility. As a PSM III you’ll learn more from less experienced members in their daily struggles whilst practicing Scrum, than seasons Scrum practitioners.

I hope this series has helped you on your journey. I hope you enjoyed the read. I know some subjects can be tedious. I would love to learn about your thoughts and experience. Feel free to reach out to me personally if you have any questions.

The Road to PSM III is being reformatted to The Road to Mastery! Part I: Down the Rabbit Hole is now available.

Continue to Season 2:

Nyland out.